On Tuesday I shared with you guys that I’m doing a 7-day fast. That means 7 full days of nothing but sea salt, water and black coffee. If you have questions about fasting, definitely check out the episodes of the podcast I mentioned in that post.
If you’d rather listen to this post than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
When I made the decision to do this fast, I had to think about what I’d include and exclude. For example, was I going to drink coffee? Yes. Black coffee is definitely included. But another interesting thing made the list of inclusions:
Joy.
I know, it sounds so cheesy but hear me out.
When I did my 5 day fast last year, I very much made myself a victim of it. I went into it with doubt and dread. Though I made the choice to do it and could absolutely have chosen to not do it, I was totally in victim mode.
I complained about being hungry. I complained about being tired. I complained about being grumpy and lacking focus. I complained about seeing food pictures online.
There was zero joy.
And honestly, I think a lot of us go through life that way.
We complain about our jobs. We complain about responsibilities we took on by choice. We complain when we’re single and we complain when we’re in a relationship. We complain about food. We complain when we’re hungry and we complain when we’re stuffed. We complain about our bodies. We complain when we’re tired and also when we overslept. We complain about other people, even people we love and have in our lives by choice!
It’s kind of exhausting. It’s exhausting to be the complainer and exhausting to listen to others complain.
We’re a victim of our own circumstances – circumstances we created. We’ve turned our blessings into burdens and become accustomed to participating more in our problems than in solutions to our problems.
So. I choose joy.
I choose to be joyful in this fast. I choose to be joyful as I go through my work day. I choose to be joyful as I respond to emails and joyful as I update my accounting records.
I chose to do this fast. I can choose not to at any time. I refuse to make myself a victim of my choices and circumstances.
If I don’t like something, I’ll participate in the solution. Otherwise, I choose joy.
There is no circumstance that takes away your ever-present super power: the power of choice.
No matter how much time you have, how much stress you’re under, how upset you are or how inconsistent your past has been, you still hold the transformative power of choice.
It’s always with you.
In today’s episode we’re talking about a major barrier to change: elevating your circumstances, diminishing yourself and convincing yourself that you are small & powerless in the face of things that happen to and around you.
It’s just not true. Today, we’re taking your power back. Today, you’ll refuse to diminish yourself and step into your power.
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
Today I am kicking off a 5 part blog series on mindset shifts that have completely transformed my life. This is part 1 of 5.
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
I’ve been reflecting on what is different in my life and, more importantly, how I created those changes.
There’s the obvious stuff: I believe in myself and my ability to make things different. For most of my life, I doubted that I’d ever change. I trust myself around food – that certainly was not the case for about 3 decades. Food doesn’t consume my thoughts. I’m not obsessed with everything I do, everything I eat, and every pound on the scale. I am not swinging wildly from one extreme to the other. Most obviously, I used to wear a size 24. The jeans I wore this weekend are a size 10. That’s pretty damn different.
But, I really believe that the way we think is what drives our choices. Given that, what’s most different about the way I think?
The first thing is my approach to those moments, days or weeks of struggle, lack of motivation, frustration & inconsistency. I still have those moments, on the regular, but a huge shift is how I respond to them.
The Old Way:
In the past, when I wasn’t getting results, felt like I was stuck or was in a period of no motivation, my perspective was that I needed to find something new.
I needed a new approach. Sometimes that was a new diet. Sometimes a new book on mindset. A new trainer or workout plan. A new journal. A new strategy. New. More. Different.
I was always looking for the next thing.
I needed to know more. I needed a bigger arsenal of tips and tricks and habits.
My struggle was only because I hadn’t found that thing.
More more more.
All it got me was more of the same. More inconsistency. More hopping from one thing to another and never choosing to create consistency.
The New Way:
I still struggle. I get down on myself. I get frustrated. I have periods where my body seems unresponsive to what I’m doing.
But I’m DONE looking for “more”.
The answers are not outside me. They are inside me.
I don’t need to know more. I don’t need a new idea or approach. I don’t need a new strategy or tatic. I don’t need a book or a podcast or a pep talk.
I already have what I need.
I’m just not doing what I know.
The constant seeking is a distraction from action.
It’s not about looking outside me for answers in the world.
It’s about looking inside me for answers in my heart and in my head.
Ultimately, it’s about answers in my practice. My answers are always in what I do, how I act & the choices I make.
That’s the shift.
If I feel unmotivated, I don’t need a song, book, or podcast. I need to create motivation.
I need to be the change.
I don’t need a new tool or tactic. I need to get serious about being consistent with what I already know.
Too many people are telling themselves they are stuck and they need more ideas.
Honestly, if anything, you need less. Far less.
Are there things you don’t know? Sure. Of course.
Are those things required for you to make progress? Not likely.
And: you will learn infinitely more from your own action & practice than from any book, podcast or strategy in the world.
ACTION IS THE ANSWER.
Do something.
Stop thinking about it. Stop searching for it.
There isn’t one of us who can’t say where we could be more consistent. There isn’t one of us who can’t say where we could be more disciplined. There isn’t one of us who can’t say where we could make an improvement.
Put your focus there.
That’s the shift.
To put it simply: I used to be a searching. I used to look to everyone except myself. I wanted their ideas. Their strategies.
If I was failing, I assumed it was because there was some missing piece of the puzzle that I had to go find.
That was a distraction from what mattered most: MY WORK.
The missing piece was my commitment to consistent action.
That’s where people are missing out.
We are in the information age, which is awesome, but it can be deceiving & distracting, especially if all the complexity blinds you to the transformative power of SIMPLICITY.
Don’t let learning take your eyes off doing.
What you need to do is act.
And when you aren’t sure and you’re struggling: don’t learn more.
Do better.
What is one thing you could do today that is an improvement for you?
What is one thing that you know you need to be more consistent with?
As you guys know, I’m currently writing my first book. In that process, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the most effective, efficient & permanent ways to create change.
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, just keep reading below.
My issues with food started when I was really young. My mom severely limited what I ate, when I ate and how much I ate. As as result, I started sneaking food and overeating when the opportunity presented itself at a very, very young age. The intensity of my food seeking & sneaking only increased as I got older.
There were two major problems created by my pattern of sneaking food & using food as a means to feel pleasure or relief:
Repetition changed my brain
Food became my primary (only?) pathway to pleasure
You read that first one right. Repetition changed my brain. Literally.
Our brains are very impressive machines. For anything to happen – a choice, behavior, any action and reaction – there’s an intricate network of communication that has to occur in the brain.
That network of communication happens between neurons that fire electrical signals to each other. The messages get passed from one neuron to another as it transforms from a thought to an action.
With repetition, these neurons increase the strength of their connection. With enough repetition, it becomes a deep channel, increasingly efficient and effortless over time.
That’s where we get the phrase “neurons that fire together wire together”.
Through years of repetition, I created a communication channel in my brain so strong that it fired effortlessly and automatically.
That’s one of the primary reasons it can feel like change is so hard. This is one of the mechanisms behind the sense that we made a choice or acted on an impulse without thinking.
We’ve made that neural pathway a deep groove. A hard wired connection.
Here’s the good news: we can change that and we have 2 primary ways to do so:
Create a new neural pathway
Stop firing the existing one
In my example, I could create a new, stronger pathway in my brain through repetition. That would certainly take some time. Afterall, this strong pathway of turning to food in response to emotion and seeking pleasure and relief from food is one that has been building and gaining strength since I was 4 or 5 years old.
I make change significantly easier when I simultaneously practice abandoning that strong, original connection. If I can do this in tandem with creating a new pathway, my progress will be exponentially faster and easier.
That’s where I came up with the idea of 100 denials. One hundred is an entirely arbitary number, but I set a goal for myself to not act on the urge to seek pleasure from food purely for the sake of pleasure 100 times.
Don’t get me wrong – I want to love the foods I eat. I’m not talking about not enjoying what I eat at mealtime. One of my #1 food rules is to eat foods I love that love me back.
My 100 denials is about denying the impulse to choose food as a solution in times when hunger is NOT the problem.
One hundred denials is about 100 times saying “no” to that urge to grab a piece of chocolate, eat when I’m not hungry, eat in response to emotion or sneak something when someone isn’t looking.
This might not be an appropriate challenge for you.
Maybe the pathway you need to change is about complaining. Maybe it’s about not hitting the snooze button. Maybe it’s about snacking.
The point is this: yes, change feels hard. There is a physiological reason for that. There’s also a physiological solution.
Don’t continue to strengthen that neural pathway through repetition.
Challenge yourself to be the change. Challenge yourself to starve that pathway of energy and not give it any more strength or authority.
I’ll be sharing my 100 denials, most often on my Anchor channel, so be sure to check that out!
